Background Image

...

Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Good Churches Are Not

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Music Takes Us Out Of The Actual And Whispers To Us Dim Secrets That Startles Out Wonder As To Who We Are, And For What, Whence, And Whereto.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

A Cheerful, Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture.

In Certain Men Digestion And Sex Absorb The Vital Force, And The Stronger These Are, The Individual Is So Much Weaker. The More Ofthese Drones Perish, The Better For The Hive.

To Educate The Wise Man, The State Exists; And With The Appearance Of The Wise Man, The State Expires. The Appearance Of Charactermakes The State Unnecessary. The Wise Man Is The State.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior. The Whole Economy Of Nature Is Bent On Expression. The Tell-tale Body Is All Tongues. Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces Which Expose The Whole Movement.

The Tendencies Of The Times Favor The Idea Of Self-government, And Leave The Individual, For All Code, To The Rewards And Penalties Of His Own Constitution, Which Work With More Energy Than We Believe, Whilst We Depend On Artificial Restraints.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

A Man's Wife Has More Power Over Him Than The State Has.

To Believe In Luck, If It Were Not A Solecism So To Use The Word Believe, Is Skepticism.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood, And Always We Are Fishing Up Some Wonderful Article Out Of That Pond; Until, By And By, We Begin To Suspect That The Biography Of The One Foolish Person We Know Is, In Reality, Nothing Less Than The Miniature Paraphrase Of The Hundred Volumes Of The Universal History.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

In Every Man's Memory, With The Hours When Life Culminated Are Usually Associated Certain Books Which Met His Views.

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

It Was A Pleasure And A Privilege To Walk With Him [h.d. Thoreau]. He Knew The Country Like A Fox Or A Bird, And Passed Through It As Freely By Paths Of His Own.

Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art.

All Reform Aims, In Some One Particular, To Let The Soul Have Its Way Through Us; In Other Words, To Engage Us To Obey.

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And Nations Is That Of Turning Aside From One's Main Purpose To Serve A Job Here And There.

The Meaning Of Good And Bad, Of Better And Worse, Is Simply Helping Or Hurting.

True Friends Are Two People Who Are Comfortable Sharing Silence Together.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self.

We Dress Our Garden, Eat Our Dinners, Discuss The Household With Our Wives, And These Things Make No Impression, Are Forgotten Next Week; But In The Solitude To Which Every Man Is Always Returning, He Has A Sanity And Revelations, Which In His Passage Into New Worlds He Will Carry With Him. Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart! — It Seems To Say, — There Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

But When You Have Chosen Your Part, Abide By It, And Do Not Weakly Try To Reconcile Yourself With The World.

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

The Only True Gifts Are A Portion Of Yourself.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

The Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

Men Of God Have Always, From Time To Time, Walked Among Men, And Made Their Commission Felt In The Heart And Soul Of The Commonest Hearer.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

We Will Walk On Our Own Feet; We Will Work With Our Own Hands; We Will Speak Our Own Minds... A Nation Of Men Will For The First Time Exist, Because Each Believes Himself Inspired By The Divine Soul Which Also Inspires All Men.

Really, All Things And Persons Are Related To Us, But According To Our Nature, They Act On Us Not At Once, But In Succession, Andwe Are Made Aware Of Their Presence One At A Time. All Persons, All Things Which We Have Known, Are Here Present, And Many More Than We See; The World Is Full.

We Must Not Tamper With The Organic Motion Of The Soul.

The Mark Of A Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension.

He Who Would Be A Man Must Therefore Be A Non-conformist.

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; ... He Learns His Ignorance, Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

Our Impatience Of Miles, When We Are In A Hurry; But It Is Still Best That A Mile Should Have Seventeen Hundred And Sixty Yards.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything.

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

My Gentleman Gives The Law Where He Is; He Will Outpray Saints In Chapel, Outgeneral Veterans In The Field, And Outshine All Courtesy In The Hall. He Is Good Company For Pirates, And Good With Academicians; So That It Is Useless To Fortify Yourself Against Him; He Has The Private Entrance To All Minds, And I Could As Easily Exclude Myself, As Him.

I Didn't Find My Friends; The Good Lord Gave Them To Me.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

The Pest Of Society Are The Egotist, They Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Course And Fine. It Is A Disease That Like The Flu Falls On All Constitutions.

I'm Happier. I Guess I Made Up My Mind To Be That Way.

Evermore In The World Is This Marvelous Balance Of Beauty And Disgust, Magnificence And Rats.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be,-admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

Those Who Have Ruled Human Destinies, Like Planets, For Thousands Of Years, Were Not Handsome Men.

All History Is The Decline Of War, Though The Slow Decline. All That Society Has Yet Gained Is Mitigation; The Doctrine Of The Right Of War Still Remains.

Our Friendships Hurry To Short And Poor Conclusions, Because We Have Made Them A Texture Of Wine And Dreams, Instead Of The Toughfibre Of The Human Heart. The Laws Of Friendship Are Austere And Eternal, Of One Web With The Laws Of Nature And Of Morals.

The Charm Of The Best Courages Is That They Are Inventions, Inspirations, Flashes Of Genius.

The Best Part Of Health Is Fine Disposition

The Only Method To Possess A Buddy Is Always To Be One.

I Am A Part And Parcel Of God.

The Buddhist, Who Thanks No Man, Who Says "do Not Flatter Your Benefactors," But Who, In His Conviction That Every Good Deed Can By No Possibility Escape Its Reward, Will Not Deceive The Benefactor By Pretending That He Has Done More Than He Should, Is A Transcendentalist.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

I Have Been Told, That In Some Public Discourses Of Mine My Reverence For The Intellect Has Made Me Unjustly Cold To The Personalrelations. But Now I Almost Shrink At The Remembrance Of Such Disparaging Words. For Persons Are Love's World, And The Coldest Philosopher Cannot Recount The Debt Of The Young Soul Wandering Here In Nature To The Power Of Love, Without Being Tempted To Unsay, As Treasonable To Nature, Aught Derogatory To The Social Instincts.

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

If We Shall Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures.

People Are Very Inclined To Set Moral Standards For Others.

We Are Never Without A Pilot. When We Know Not How To Steer, And Dare Not Hoist A Sail, We Can Drift. The Current Knows The Way, Though We Do Not. The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself, And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

Another Sort Of False Prayers Are Our Regrets. Discontent Is The Way Of Self-reliance: It Is Infirmity Of Will. Regret Calamities, If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer; If Not, Attend Your Own Work, And Already The Evil Begins To Be Repaired.

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

The Way Of Providence Is A Little Rude. The Habit Of Snake And Spider, The Snap Of The Tiger And Other Leapers And Bloody Jumpers, The Crackle Of The Bones Of His Prey In The Coil Of The Anaconda-these Are In The System, And Our Habits Are Like Theirs.

Housekeeping Is Not Beautiful; It Cheers And Raises Neither The Husband, The Wife, Nor The Child; Neither The Host Nor The Guest;it Oppresses Women. A House Kept To The End Of Prudence Is Laborious Without Joy; A House Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Be An Opener Of Doors

Classics Which At Home Are Drowsily Read Have A Strange Charm In A Country Inn, Or In The Transom Of A Merchant Brig.

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

The Religion Of England Is Part Of Good-breeding. When You See On The Continent The Well-dressed Englishman Come Into His Ambassador's Chapel And Put His Face For Silent Prayer Into His Smooth-brushed Hat, You Cannot Help Feeling How Much National Pride Prays With Him, And The Religion Of A Gentleman.

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

In These Divine Pleasures Permitted To Me Of Walks In The June Night Under Moon And Stars, I Can Put My Life As A Fact Before Me And Stand Aloof From Its Honor And Shame.

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

Go Oft To The House Of Thy Friend, For Weeds Choke The Unused Path.

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

So . . . I Feel In Regard To This Aged England . . . Pressed Upon By Transitions Of Trade And . . . Competing Populations,-i See Her Not Dispirited, Not Weak, But Well Remembering That She Has Seen Dark Days Before;-indeed, With A Kind Of Instinct That She Sees A Little Better In A Cloudy Day, And That, In Storm Of Battle And Calamity, She Has A Secret Vigor And A Pulse Like A Cannon.

The Work Of Vegetation Begins First In The Irritability Of The Bark And Leaf-buds.

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

Let The Realist Not Mind Appearances. Let Him Delegate To Others The Costly Courtesies And Decorations Of Social Life. The Virtuesare Economists, But Some Of The Vices Are Also. Thus, Next To Humility, I Have Noticed That Pride Is A Pretty Good Husband. A Good Pride Is, As I Reckon It, Worth From Five Hundred To Fifteen Hundred A Year.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

Every Sunset Brings The Promise Of A New Dawn

Between Cultivated Minds The First Interview Is The Best.

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them. You May As Well Ask A Loom Which Weaves Huckabuck Why It Does Not Make Cashmere As To Expect Poetry From This Engineer Or A Chemical Discovery From That Jobber.

Our Knowledge Is The Amassed Thought And Experience Of Innumerable Minds.

You've Got To Be Taught To Be Afraid Of People Whose Eyes Are Oddly Made And People Whose Skin Is A Different Shade.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

I Find Nothing In Fables More Astonishing Than My Experience In Every Hour. One Moment Of A Man's Life Is A Fact So Stupendous As To Take The Luster Out Of Fiction.

England Produces Under Favorable Conditions Of Ease And Culture The Finest Women In The World. And, As The Men Are Affectionate And True-hearted, The Women Inspire And Refine Them.

We Might As Easily Reprove The East Wind, Or The Frost, As A Political Party, Whose Members, For The Most Part, Could Give No Account Of Their Position, But Stand For The Defence Of Those Interests In Which They Find Themselves.

Faith Makes Us, And Not We It; And Faith Makes Its Own Forms.

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Men Are Too Coarsely Made For The Delicacy Of Beautiful Carriage And Customs. It Is Not Quite Sufficient To Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

Be A Football To Time And Chance, The More Kicks, The Better, So That You Inspect The Whole Game And Know Its Utmost Law.

The God Who Made New Hampshire Taunted The Lofty Land With Little Men.

Perpetual Modernness Is The Measure Of Merit, In Every Work Of Art; Since The Author Of It Was Not Misled By Anything Short- Livedor Local, But Abode By Real And Abiding Traits.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

How Often We Must Remember The Art Of The Surgeon, Which, In Replacing The Broken Bone, Contents Itself With Releasing The Parts From False Position; They Fly Into Place By The Action Of The Muscles. On This Art Of Nature All Our Arts Rely.

Our Faith Comes In Moments . . . Yet There Is A Depth In Those Brief Moments Which Constrains Us To Ascribe More Reality To Them Than To All Other Experiences.

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

Now That Is The Wisdom Of A Man, In Every Instance Of His Labor, To Hitch His Wagon To A Star, And See His Chore Done By The Gods Themselves. That Is The Way We Are Strong, By Borrowing The Might Of The Elements. The Forces Of Steam, Gravity, Galvanism, Light, Magnets, Wind, Fire, Serve Us Day By Day And Cost Us Nothing.

The Colleges, While They Provide Us With Libraries, Furnish No Professors Of Books; And I Think No Chair Is So Much Needed.

Some Eyes Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Pistol, And Others Are As Insulting As Hissing Or Kicking; Some Have No More Expression Than Blueberries, While Others Are As Deep As A Well Which You Can Fall Into.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

Great Conversation ... Requires An Absolute Running Of Two Souls Into One.

As There Is A Use In Medicine For Poisons, So The World Cannot Move Without Rogues.

The Torpid Artist Seeks Inspiration At Any Cost, By Virtue Or By Vice, By Friend Or By Fiend, By Prayer Or By Wine.

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles. Friend, Client, Child, Sickness, Fear, Want, Charity, All Knock At Once At Thy Closet Door And Say,—'come Out Unto Us.' But Keep Thy State; Come Not Into Their Confusion. The Power Men Possess To Annoy Me I Give Them By A Weak Curiosity. No Man Can Come Near Me But Through My Act.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong.

Society Always Consists In The Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons.

The Astronomers Said, 'give Us Matter And A Little Motion And We Will Construct The Universe. It Is Not Enough That We Should Have Matter, We Must Also Have A Single Impulse, One Shove To Launch The Mass And Generate The Harmony Of The Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces.' ... There Is No End To The Consequences Of The Act. That Famous Aboriginal Push Propagates Itself Through All The Balls Of The System, And Through Every Atom Of Every Ball.

Government Has Been A Fossil: It Should Be A Plant.

For, The Advantages Which Fashion Values, Are Plants Which Thrive In Very Confined Localities, In A Few Streets, Namely. Out Of This Precinct, They Go For Nothing; Are Of No Use In The Farm, In The Forest, In The Market, In War, In The Nuptial Society, In The Literary Or Scientific Circle, At Sea, In Friendship, In The Heaven Of Thought Or Virtue.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

The Time Will Come When The Evil Forms We Have Known Can No More Be Organized. Man's Culture Can Spare Nothing, Wants All Material. He Is To Convert All Impediments Into Instruments, All Enemies Into Power.

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us. 'tis Good To Give A Stranger A Meal, Or A Night's Lodging. 'tis Better To Be Hospitable To His Good Meaning And Thought, And Give Courage To A Companion. We Must Be As Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

Underneath The Inharmonious And Trivial Particulars, Is A Musical Perfection, The Ideal Journeying Always With Us, The Heaven Without Rent Or Seam.

One Man Pins Me To The Wall, While With Another I Walk Among The Stars

The Masses Have No Habit Of Self-reliance Or Original Action.

The Enthusiast Always Finds The Master, The Masters, Whom He Seeks. Always Genius Seeks Genius, Desires Nothing So Much As To Be A Pupil And To Find Those Who Can Lend It Aid To Perfect Itself.

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

Knowledge Is When You Learn Something New Every Day. Wisdom Is When You Let Something Go Every Day.

Greatness Is A Property For Which No Man Gets Credit Too Soon; It Must Be Possessed Long Before It Is Acknowledged.

Each Man Has An Aptitude Born With Him. Do Your Work.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

It Is One Of The Blessings Of Old Friends That You Can Afford To Be Stupid With Them.

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And The Revealer Of Truth.

The Only Joy In His Being Mine, Is That The Not Mine Is Mine.

Give All To Love; Obey Thy Heart.

Heaven Always Bears Some Proportion To Earth. The God Of The Cannibal Will Be A Cannibal, Of The Crusades A Crusader, And Of The Merchants A Merchant.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

The Value Of A Principle Is The Number Of Things It Will Explain.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

I Know And See Too Well, When Not Voluntarily Blind, The Speedy Limits Opersons Called High And Worthy.

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed; For When Love Has Once Departed From The Eyes Of The False-hearted, And One By One Has Torn Off Quite The Bandages Of Purple Light; Though Thou Wert The Loveliest Form The Soul Had Ever Dressed, Thou Shalt Seem, In Each Reply, A Vixen To His Altered Eye; Thy Softest Pleadings Seem Too Bold, Thy Praying Lute Will Seem To Scold; Though Thou Kept The Straightest Road, Yet Thou Errest Far And Broad.

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

We Estimate The Wisdom Of Nations By Seeing What They Did With Their Surplus Capital.

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Don't Make A Novel To Establish A Principle Of Political Economy. You Will Spoil Both.

Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.

Every Man's Nature Is A Sufficient Advertisement To Him Of The Character Of His Fellows.

But Your Isolation Must Not Be Mechanical, But Spiritual, That Is, Must Be Elevation.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities, No Doubt Crept In. Forget Them As Soon As You Can, Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely, With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This New Day Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

The Glory Of The Farmer Is That, In The Division Of Labors, It Is His Part To Create. All Trade Rests At Last On His Primitive Activity. He Stands Close To Nature; He Obtains From The Earth The Bread And The Meat. The Food Which Was Not, He Causes To Be.

Division Of Labor

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

We All Need Someone Who Can Help Us Do What We Already Can.

The The Illuminated Mind The Whole World Sparkles With Light.

Power And Speed Be Hands And Feet.

Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House, A World; And Beyond Its World A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You: Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

No Reason Can Be Asked Or Given Why The Soul Seeks Beauty. Beauty, In Its Largest And Profoundest Sense, Is One Expression For The Universe. God Is The All-fair. Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All.

Different Faces

The Indian Who Was Laid Under A Curse, That The Wind Should Not Blow On Him, Nor Water Flow To Him, Nor Fire Burn Him, Is A Type Of Us All. The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain, And We The Para Coats That Shed Every Drop. Nothing Is Left Us Now But Death. We Look To That With A Grim Satisfaction, Saying, There At Least Is Reality That Will Not Dodge Us.

Those Who Live To The Future Must Always Appear Selfish To Those Who Live To The Present.

Though Your Views Are In Straight Antagonism To Theirs, Assume An Identity Of Sentiment, Assume That You Are Saying Precisely Thatwhich All Think, And In The Flow Of Wit And Love Roll Out Your Paradoxes In Solid Column, With Not The Infirmity Of A Doubt.

The Art Of Conversation, Or The Qualification For A Good Companion, Is A Certain Self-control, Which Now Holds The Subject, Now Lets It Go, With A Respect For The Emergencies Of The Moment.

Nature Has Her Own Best Mode Of Doing Each Thing, And She Has Somewhere Told It Plainly, If We Will Keep Our Eyes And Ears Open. If Not, She Will Not Be Slow In Undeceiving Us, When We Prefer Our Own Way To Hers.

Conservatism, Ever More Timorous And Narrow, Disgusts The Children, And Drives Them For A Mouthful Of Fresh Air Into Radicalism.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

In Spite Of Virtue And The Muse, Nemesis Will Have Her Dues, And All Our Struggles And Our Toils Tighter Wind The Giant Coils.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

Real Men Don't Conform To The Beliefs Of Others, Even When Society Has Concluded On What Is Good And True, But Maintain The Integrity Of Their Own Mind.

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

Beside All The Small Reasons We Assign, There Is A Great Reason For The Existence Of Every Extant Fact; A Reason Which Lies Grandand Immovable, Often Unsuspected Behind It In Silence.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions. The Surest Poison Is Time.

The Use Of Literature Is To Afford Us A Platform Whence We May Command A View Of Our Present Life, A Purchase By Which We May Move It....we See Literature Best From The Midst Of Wild Nature, Or From The Din Of Affairs, Or From A High Religion. The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

Nature Is A Rag-merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations; Like A Good Chemist, Whom I Found, The Other Day, In His Laboratory, Converting His Old Shirts Into Pure White Sugar.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

We Fly To Beauty As An Asylum From The Terrors Of Finite Nature.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension. What Deafness, What Stone-blind Custom, What Overgrown Error You Behold, Is There Only By Sufferance,--by Your Sufferance. See It To Be A Lie, And You Have Already Dealt It Its Mortal Blow.

The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.

Conversation Is A Game Of Circles.

My Life Should Be Unique; It Should Be An Alms, A Battle, A Conquest, A Medicine.

It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

Trending Author

Allison Pearson

Saffron Burrows

Category